Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Evidence for the correlation between prenatal thumb-sucking and post-natal handedness is building thanks to research from the School of Psychology at Queen's University, Belfast. Work there has shown that fetuses who suck their right thumb are very likely to be right-handed, while those who suck their left thumb tend to be left-handed, though not with the same consistency. Whatever the case, scientists still can't say why the right thumb is favored in the womb in the first place.

Tuesday

Fact N°
1715

Only three people have died in outer space.

Russia's Soyuz 11 mission launched on June 6, 1971, and proved to be the first time a spacecraft had made a successful visit to a space station (the Salyut 1). The three-man crew remained in space for 383 orbits, but during their return on June 30, a ventilation valve failed while at an altitude of 104 miles, suffocating the crew in outer space (which technically begins about 70 miles up). Tragically, the three cosmonauts were not the originally scheduled crew; they were a back-up crew that went on the mission when the original crew was scrapped for health reasons.

Wednesday

Fact N°
1716

Approximately 1% of the adult population wets the bed.

Bedwetting -- also known by its clinical name, nocturnal enuresis -- is typically associated with childhood, and further, more often with boys than with girls. It's estimated that about 7% of 7-year-olds suffer from nocturnal enuresis. Meanwhile, it's believed that as much as 1% of the adult population also suffers from the disorder.

Thursday

Fact N°
1717

Anesthesiologists have the highest rate of drug addiction among all the medical specialties.

Anesthesiologists -- both faculty and residents -- are at least four times more likely than doctors of any other specialty to develop drug addictions. One reason is the easy access to otherwise highly controlled drugs -- drugs they work with on a daily basis. Their drug of choice is typically fentanyl, an extremely powerful opioid narcotic at least 100 times more potent than morphine.

Friday

Fact N°
1718

The ocean floor is dotted with an estimated 3 million shipwrecks.

More than a few of them are believed to be loaded with gold, silver, platinum and other precious metals, collectively with values too high to make any reasonable estimations. One of the richest discoveries in history may have occurred in January 2009, when a salvage company found what many believe to be the Port Nicholson, a British merchant navy ship sunk off the coast of Newfoundland by the Nazis in World War II, alleged to contain as much as $4 billion in gold, diamonds and platinum.

Saturday

Fact N°
1720

When finished, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the longest tunnel of its kind in the world.

This $8 billion project began in 1996 to replace the current path used by trains traveling between Zurich and Milan in the Swiss Alps, which officials deem to be too slow and too dangerous. Scheduled to be completed in 2017, at least 2,000 people are at work on the tunnel every minute of every day of every year. When finally complete, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be perfectly level and will run straight through the Alps for 35 solid miles, saving about an hour's worth of travel time compared with the old route.

Sunday

Fact N°
1721

A famous name in rental cars is responsible for the color of most taxi cabs in the U.S.

In 1905, Chicago entrepreneur John Hertz met Walden Shaw, an auto dealership owner whose business was tanking. With Hertz's help, they were able to turn the business around, and in a few short years the men had an inventory overflow made up of trade-in vehicles. Hertz decided to mimic a business model in New York City and put these cars to work in the city's first taxicab service. He paid a local university to determine the color that would stand out the most, and the Yellow Cab Company was born.